Other World Computing announced today the OWC Mercury Aura Pro is the industry’s first high-performance Solid State Drive upgrade for the new 2012 13″ MacBook Pro with Retina display (rMBP) computers introduced by Apple last week. Available in 480GB capacity for immediate ordering and with additional capacities to be announced in November, the 6G (6Gb/s) SandForce Driven Mercury Aura Pro offers rMBP owners up to nearly 3x more storage and/or backup capacity than the factory 128GB flash module.

In addition to offering significantly more capacity over the factory base 128GB SSD, the 480GB Mercury Aura Pro offers a $220 savings over the comparable sized 512GB factory capacity upgrade costing $800. Savings, however, aren’t always measured just in dollars. A key benefit for Apple notebook owners when choosing an OWC SSD is the retention of the original factory flash module. When upgrading directly with the factory, consumers pay for the base flash capacity module, but do not get that original base flash module returned to them for re-use. Thanks to the OWC Envoy Pro USB 3.0 bus-powered portable enclosure (available late December), rMBP owners upgrading with a Mercury Aura Pro SSD can re-task the original factory flash module as an external drive for additional storage and/or backup duty.

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The world-renowned memory and FLASH module manufacturer KINGMAX has pinpointed the trend of increasing demand for miniaturized solid state drives. With the recent release of the MMP20 mSATA SSD, now the mSATA MMP30 SSD that uses the SATA III 6Gb/s interface is also released. Not only is it suitable for the newest Ultrabook, it is also suitable for tablet PCs and Small Form Factor or embedded systems. The MMP30 has both performance and economic benefits, making it the ideal choice for system integrators or manufacturers. Average consumers can also use the MMP30 SSD with a mainboard that supports Intel ®Smart Response Technology to easily upgrade the system performance.

The KINGMAX mSATA MMP30 SSD uses the SATA III 6Gb/s interface, and complies with the newest generation Ultrabook specifications defined by Intel. It is equipped with the high performance LSI Sanforce controller, and the MMP30’s maximum sequential write speed can reach as high as 520MB/s with a maximum sequential read speed as high as 320MB/s. Capacities come in 32GB, 64GB and 128GB. With the diverse development of the Ultrabook, the mSATA MMP30 SSD provides system integrators or manufacturers another excellent selection that is both economical and that includes high performance. In addition, the MMP30 solid state drive has lightweight and compact features, and complies with JEDEC MO-300B specifications, which makes it suitable to apply in Small Form Factor or embedded systems and also the currently popular tablet PCs. It can increase their overall data read and write speed, speed up startup time and program application operation time, and reduces power consumption.

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Intel Corporation announced today it is shipping its first solid-state drive (SSD) using industry leading 20-nanometer (nm) NAND flash memory process.

The new Intel Solid-State Drive 335 Series (Intel SSD 335 Series) uses the smallest, most efficient multi-level cell NAND flash on the market, allowing Intel to advance its 300 Series client/consumer SSDs to the next-generation technology. SSDs offer users an overall PC performance boost accelerating productivity applications and other computing activities, such as Web surfing, movie watching, video chatting and content creation.

The Intel SSD 335 Series is a 6 gigabit-per-second (Gb/s) SATA drive that can replace a traditional, slower operating hard disk drive (HDD) for faster access to files and programs. The Intel SSD 335 comes in a 240 gigabyte (GB) capacity that performs 500 megabytes-per-second (MB/s) sequential reads and 450 MB/s sequential writes to provide users a blend of cutting-edge performance and Intel quality at a consumer friendly price.

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Samsung Electronics America Inc., a market leader and award-winning innovator in consumer electronics, today announced an expanded line of advanced SD and microSD cards with the introduction of a new Pro Series line featuring cards with capacities up to 64GB and transfer speeds up to 80MB per second. Available now, the new cards are currently on display at PhotoPlus International Conference + Expo at the Javits Convention Center in New York City. These new memory cards offer added performance benefits for photographers looking to capture high-quality images, or for mobile users looking to expand the storage capacity and life of their smartphone or tablet device.

The new Pro Series cards expand Samsung’s line-up of memory card products, joining new High Speed Series and Plus Extreme Speed Series – both of which include cards with capacities up to 32GB. Also at the PhotoPlus Expo, Samsung will exhibit its full line of Digital Imaging products, including new NX lenses joining the growing NX family of compact system cameras and SMART compact point-and-shoot models with built-in Wi-Fi.

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